I picked this one to watch as a bit of a wildcard, some times I just like to step outside my watch list and try something different. I picked this one for an obscure reason - the lead actress has an uncanny resemblance to Chae Soo Bin (Where Stars Land, I Am Not A Robot) and I was curious! The description, if anything, was the one thing that had put me off from watching it previously - it sounded a bit... light weight - but oh boy was that wrong.

First couple of episodes are a bit awkward because they're focusing on all the "prettyness", pretty boys and pretty girls and even at the introduction ceremony at the university they are openly talking about how pretty the new freshmen are, it just felt a bit uncomfortable for me and I was happy it didn't last - but it did serve to set a tone initially.

The main female lead, as a child, was considered by her peers to be ugly and overweight. When she stepped up to fix the weight problem and became slim, they just found other names to call her and focused on their opinions of her face. This kind of long term bullying has a big impact on kids and you can see it has had a huge impact on her throughout the entirety of the show - any time you're thinking "oh jeez just say it already" or something, you need to reflect back on this history very carefully because it's completely undermined her way of thinking throughout her life.

As she gets older and looks to go to University she gets cosmetic surgery and completely changes her look - coming out the other side of that, she's now stunningly beautiful and that's essentially where the story kicks in.

Throughout the story, a lot of complex issues are covered, mostly those facing young women relating to cyber bullying, dieting, peer pressure, self confidence and many more.

The characters are great, even the one that starts looking like the nasty girl proves to have layers upon layers and a very detailed backstory that explains how someone gets to be the way they are today and some of the underlying non-obvious reasons for it. Towards the end when they were focusing more on that character, I was desperate for that character to just reach out and ask for help.

There is some irony that as I understand it, the female lead in reality also had plastic surgery and there are those commenters online who have been sadly shaming it. I've also seen comments that they felt the male lead was quite wooden but I actually liked the representation of that character - the put a shy guy inside a handsome body, someone who didn't know how to socialise and didn't know how to be around others because he always kept to himself. As someone who has always been that way myself (the shy bit, certainly not the handsome bit) I can only say I saw a lot of his manner reflecting my own personality and the way I would have reacted.

I also really liked a lot of the secondary characters, and the ML's mother was probably my favourite, the storyline of her reconnecting with her son and daughter was very touching and handled superbly by the author.

The OST didn't have any particularly memorable tracks to it unfortunately.

This story has a lovely slow burn romance throughout and I was utterly hooked from the start to the finish, watching it in two days flat. I totally recommend this one if that's the kind of story you're looking for.